Xiaomi builds its own Pinecone SoC; ditches Qualcomm and MediaTek

Xiaomi Pinecone SoC to launch next month.

The latest reports suggest that Xiaomi might follow the path taken by Apple, Huawei, and Samsung with its own smartphone chipsets. We have been hearing about Xiaomi's Pinecone processors since the past few days.

As per The Wall Street Journal, Xiaomi is attempting to launch its own processor in order to join the list of top-tier smartphone manufacturers and stand out from the rest. Allegedly known as Pinecone, Xiapi's processor is likely to debut in a month's time. This coincides with the launch of the Xiaomi Mi 6, which should be announced in March.

Xiaomi spent $15 million to take over the mobile processor technology from Datang Subsidiary Leadcore Technology Ltd. The chipsets from come from a shell company known Beijing Pinecone Electronics.

Right now, other than Samsung and Huawei, the other Android smartphone makers depend on Qualcomm for high-end processors. Sometimes, Qualcomm chipsets result in issues such as the overheating Snapdragon 810 processor that was announced in 2015. As Samsung has its own Exynos SoC, it could take advantage of the situation and ship the Exynos variant of the Galaxy S6 in the U.S. without getting affected by the processor's problems.

Xiaomi has faced a lot of struggles to launch a smartphone in the western countries and is moving towards opening a store in the U.S. But, the company is yet to launch a smartphone in Europe or North America. Designing and developing its own chips will make Xiaomi open to more potential patent lawsuits. Moreover, the company has faced a downfall in China taking it to the fifth position and Hugo Barra has left Xiaomi.

What we know for now is that Xiaomi is not going to be present at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017. So, we need to wait for a separate press conference for the company to announce its offerings.